1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus handling codes, a method for controlling the apparatus and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-259045 discusses a method in which even when documents containing codes are copied at an N-up setting, the documents can be combined and printed such that the codes can be decoded later.
More specifically, in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-259045, while the sizes of the document images are reduced as illustrated in the representative drawing, the codes of original size are printed as they are in such a manner that the codes can be decoded later.
However, if the two codes contained in two original documents are included in one sheet while retaining the original size, the area available for printing information other than these codes is considerably reduced. This may degrade the visibility of the information (e.g., document images) other than the codes.
To address such a problem, it is desired to create a single code whose area is smaller than the total area of the two codes contained in two original documents and add the single code to the documents, or to create a plurality of smaller codes whose total area is smaller than the original two codes, and add these codes to the documents. It is also desired to delete a part of the information contained in the codes as a result of the decrease in code size.